


The Sea of Tranquility

by ChronicallyOwlish



Series: Trance and Harper Vignettes [2]
Category: Andromeda (TV)
Genre: Family, Fictober, Friendship, Gen, Pre-Canon, Tranquil, season one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-04
Updated: 2018-10-04
Packaged: 2019-07-25 01:16:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16187054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChronicallyOwlish/pseuds/ChronicallyOwlish
Summary: All his life, Seamus Harper has searched for peace and tranquility in a Universe out to get him.





	The Sea of Tranquility

By ten, Seamus can tell the Mares of the moon by sight. Those dark shadows set against silvery white fascinate him. He spends hours at night studying them and tracing their outlines.

“They’re dark because they're deep,” Dad explains. “The light can’t reach down into the depths, so they show up here as shadows.”

Deep seas of stone. Once undisturbed, then vacation destinations for the first exo-planetary settlers, and later hellish mines for the Dragons. It’s empty again. Even the Dragons are scared of the Magog. His favorites are Mare Tranquillitatis and Mare Serenitatis. The Seas of Tranquility and Serenity. Though deep down he understands it’s only rocks, dust, and ruins up there, he imagines that with names like that they must be great places to be. Both mean peace according to Mom. Peace is hard to find down here, and he sure would like to know what it feels like.

 

* * *

 

At thirteen there’s no place he wants to be more than the moon. Brendon and his best friend, Isaac, do their best to take care of him and make sure he has what he needs. They protect him and he should be grateful. Mom would want that. But his cousin can’t give him the only thing he needs—his parents.

Today is the first time he’s been back home, or what was once home. His parent’s blood still stains the rough wood panels they used as flooring, soaked into the wood the way it has soaked into his dreams. On the wind, he can hear his mother’s screams and is sure he always will.

The Dragons came for him but took his parents instead. Guilt stabs at him, yet he doesn’t want to follow them. He wants to live because the Dragons wanted him to die.

He’s a smart kid. Logical. He loves the scientific method in all of its rigidity. All his life he’s been grounded in reality but as he watches the moon, he starts to think that, maybe, his mom and dad are up there waiting for him, if only he can get to them.

 

* * *

 

Eighteen, and he now knows there is no such thing as serenity and tranquility is a lie. There’s only pain. Only struggle. Only death. Between it, there are glorious, wonderful moments of serendipity. The warm softness of a woman and stories by the fire; laughter and friendship—things worth living for, because life is too hard to dwell on anything else.

It's another moonlight funeral tonight. They bury Isaac’s body in the near-frozen ground before the Dragons can haul him off and toss him in the furnaces—another nameless kludge.

The Boston winter is just around the corner, there’ll be more deaths. More scraping of shovels trying to break through the icy soil. More whispers of dirt as it hides the Dragon’s sins underground.

Isaac’s girlfriend weeps quietly as Brendan shovels dirt over his friend. Isaac was a brother to them both. Now he’s gone. Gone because the Dragons sent a platoon of hardened soldiers after a bunch of kids whose only crime was annoying them. He wishes more than anything that he can give his cousin peace after all Brendan’s given him, but the truth is that he will only bring his cousin pain. Brendan will lose him, too, one day. Or he’ll lose Brendan. Tomorrow, a few months down the line, a decade or more… in the end, death comes for them all. There aren’t many wrinkled faces in Boston.

 

* * *

 

At twenty, opportunity knocks. He’s getting out. The job seems legit though the guy who hires him is an asshole of epic proportions. What does he expect from someone willing to steal surface to air missiles from the Dragons? Doesn’t matter if he’s an asshole, or if he’s crazy, he’s offered Seamus a job on a starship. Besides, he doesn’t have to deal with the meat-head. His contact is a woman—Beka something. Sounds hot.

“It’s dangerous,” Brendan says, voice deadpan. He’s frowning and staring at the fire. Summer is on its way, but Spring’s chill is hanging around. He throws on another log of compressed wood chips. “They’ll figure it out. There’s no way you’ll get off the planet. It’s a good way to get yourself killed.”

Seamus doesn’t miss the subtext. Brendan’s taken care of him and kept him alive this long, so why is he committing suicide by firing squad? It’s a good point, but he doesn’t want to hear it.

“I’ll die here anyway. Might as well die trying to get out.”

When he was a kid, he wanted to escape to the moon. Now his sights are set quite a bit further—light years away from here. There’s a whole universe out there where a street kid from a slave planet can start over. Make a fortune and settle down on a planet full of creature comforts and adoring women. The Dragons don’t control all the Known Worlds. It’s a long shot, but right now every possibility is as real as the fire in front of them.

“It’s hard out there too.” Brendan raises a bottle of bitter home brew towards the cloudless sky where the moon and stars shine down.

“Can’t be worse than here,” he replies and takes a drink from his own bottle. It warms his stomach. “I’ll come back for you. If you need anything, you just have to call.”

He means it.

 

* * *

 

Twenty-three now, hands covered in soil with the sweetly perfumed flowers he’s planting all around and a beautiful girl by his side, Seamus finally understands what peace feels like. She’s not his lover—he has yet to find a woman who’ll put up with him—but she’s his best friend and has been for over a year. She looks over her shoulder and smiles, unaware that he’s stopped working to study her.

“Can you hand me the trowl?” she asks, then frowns and turns to face him and even he can’t miss the concern on her pretty purple face. Does she know how she lights up a room? “What’s up?”

He shakes his head because it’s impossible to put his feelings into words. Life isn’t easy now, just like Brendan warned, and it’s not going to get easier. There’s a long road ahead, a lot of challenges, and he knows the pain will find him again. It always does. They’re out to do the impossible and not everyone is thrilled at the thought of a new Commonwealth—the Dragons are especially disenchanted. Seems like every week Andromeda’s under attack and they are two breaths away from losing everything. Yet…

“It’s nothing,” he says finally, “I’ve just never been happier.”

The smile returns, bright and true. “Me either. It’s great here, I’m glad Beka decided to stay.”

Nothing more needs to be said. They aren’t rich. They aren’t safe, but Andromeda is home now and her crew family. This ship is a far cry from a basalt sea on a planetary satellite, but it’s here he finds tranquility.

**Author's Note:**

> Fictober Day 2
> 
> Prompt: Tranquil


End file.
